Yearly Archives: 2023

A writer at heart, Meghan Keaney Anderson centered her career around content creation.

So, when pivoting her career into the world of generative AI, which could supposedly replace writers, Meghan received one resounding question from peers: Why?

Her answer? “[Generative AI] is here, and we need to steer it in the right direction to reach its potential. I hope that we as creators and marketers and business leaders will take the reigns of this technology and bend the arc of its use towards something positive.”

In this series, we’ll explore some of the strongest opportunities for AI in the marketing world today and in the near future, backed by HubSpot Original Research from our State of AI Survey, and expert perspectives from major brands including Jasper, ZoomInfo, and Mention.com.

Editor’s Note: This data is from our March 2023 survey of 1,350+ business professionals in the U.S., including marketers, sales pros, bloggers, and customer support specialists on AI/automation. Read the full data report here.

Top Generative AI Marketing Findings for 2023 [New Data]

1. 90% of marketers who use AI say it’s effective for content creation.

It’s no question that AI is poised to revolutionize the marketing industry. But how is a different story.

So we asked marketers: In which aspects of your role do you already leverage AI?

For starters, one of the biggest benefits of AI is that it speeds up the content creation process.

A whopping 67% of marketers who use AI use it to create content faster — like writing quicker copy, conducting faster research, or generating ideas — and 50% also believe it makes their content better.

Here are a few other ways marketers are currently using AI:

• 37% use it to write copy, including blogs, marketing emails, etc.
• 36% use it to create images for marketing content with AI art tools.
• 35% use it to get ideas/inspiration for marketing content (for instance, asking AI for “5 social media post ideas for a brand selling sunglasses to Gen Z”).

As a blogger, one of the primary use cases for AI that I’ve heard about has been blog creation. However, it’s not the only use case — or even necessarily the most effective one.

In fact, almost 60% of marketers say generative AI has been most helpful for creating social media posts, followed by product descriptions (50%), and emails (43%).

Creating AI tools themselves is also an incredibly effective lead generation strategy. As Amilah Ali, Mention.com’s Content Marketing Manager, told me, “Creating free AI tools has helped our brand with both brand awareness and lead generation, as individuals who use these tools are more likely to remember the Mention brand, and may also become potential customers in the future.”

If you don’t have the time or resources to create your own branded AI tools, there are plenty that can help you deliver more value in your work.

For instance, Mention.com, a social media listening and monitoring tool, used OpenAI’s GPT-3 capabilities to create an Instagram Caption Generator and Instagram Hashtag Generator. They’ve also created AI tools that help users generate social media bios across popular platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Corresponding Content:

• AI in Content Creation: How Creators and Marketers are Using It [Data]
• How to Fit AI Into Your Content Marketing Strategy [+ Its Biggest Pitfalls], According to Jasper’s Head of Enterprise Marketing
• AI Images in Marketing: What to Consider Before Leveraging Them

2. 85% of marketing AI users say it boosts content personalization.

As a writer, I was hesitant to believe that a robot could do my job better than I could.

And, in truth, it can’t do my job alone. But it can greatly supercharge my own productivity and even upscale my content.

In fact, 85% of marketers believe generative AI is effective at making their marketing content more personalized, and 45% say that content made with generative AI performs somewhat better than content created without the help of AI.

(An additional 18% say content made with generative AI performs much better than content without it.)

This makes sense: Generative AI is a powerful tool for generating strong ideas, brainstorming more unique angles for your content, and researching topics more in-depth than you otherwise could.

As Samyutha Reddy, Jasper’s Head of Enterprise Marketing, told me recently, “AI augments the human experience, but it doesn’t replace the human within that experience. We value writers in our society because they’re able to give us a thought-provoking human perspective on the world.”

She adds, “It isn’t just about summarizing facts that are out there. It’s about humans sharing opinions on very real topics that help build your perspective on how you feel about something. So an AI could really never replace that human perspective.”

Corresponding Content:

• 15 AI SEO Tools and How to Use AI in 2023 [New Data]
• Why AI Isn’t Replacing Our Jobs — Or Search Engines — According to Jasper’s Head of Enterprise Marketing

3. Generative AI saves marketers 3+ hours on a single piece of content.

One of the most important benefits of generative AI is how much time it can save for your team.

On average, marketers told us they save three hours and 10 minutes when using generative AI to complete a single piece of marketing content.

Wow. Let that sink in.

For a writer who needs to complete four posts a week, that translates to over 12 hours — more than a full work day! — that you can now spend up-leveling your career, seeking out more interesting angles for your topics, or focusing on other aspects of your role.

As HubSpot’s CMO Kipp Bodnar puts it, “[AI] gives you the time to obsess over your customers again.”

He goes on to provide a few examples: “It gives your sales team time to genuinely connect with customers and work with them to identify how your products can solve for their unique needs. It gives your support team the ability to focus on complex customer challenges rather than being bogged down by tickets that could be answered by a chatbot.”

He adds, “It also gives your leaders the insights they need to make more high-impact, powerful decisions that align with what matters most to your customers.”

Interested in how AI will impact businesses at-large? Check out The Hustle’s corresponding post, The New Frontier: How AI Will Impact Businesses in 2023.

Corresponding Content:

• How AI Will Revolutionize the Future of Business, According to HubSpot’s CMO
• 10 Affordable AI Tools for Businesses (+ How to Implement Affordable AI)

4. Marketers who don’t use AI are worried about over-reliance.

While generative AI poses many benefits, some companies still don’t plan to use it just yet. Let’s dig into the top reasons why.

The number one: 43% of marketers who don’t use AI are worried they’ll become overly reliant on AI tools.

HubSpot’s Senior Director of Content, Brad Wolverton, understands that marketers might feel an initial temptation to rely heavily on AI — but he believes that most marketers will quickly determine that AI alone doesn’t enable them to produce the type of high-quality content they need to stand out. 

As Wolverton puts it, “The more reliant marketers become on AI to produce content, the less differentiated that content will feel, which will put a premium on higher-quality research and writing.”

He adds, “AI-generated sites will further erode the trust people have in what they hear and view online, creating opportunities for the companies willing to double down on creative talent.”

Other concerns? 30% who are worried AI provides inaccurate information, and 30% don’t believe generative AI content is as good as content made exclusively by a human.

And, finally, 26% are worried that using generative AI puts them at risk of plagiarism.

Fortunately, these concerns don’t mean you need to forgo leveraging AI entirely — they’re just valid reasons for practicing smart, responsible behaviors when you begin implementing AI at your company.

A few tips:

• Be transparent with your audiences when you’re using AI. Let them know, ‘This blog post was written with the help of ChatGPT’. Whenever possible, being honest with your customers helps foster a sense of trust, and could also provide helpful context for areas your own customers could practice AI.
• Don’t consider AI as a human replacement. AI is meant to replace menial, tedious tasks like data collection, reporting, and research – but it shouldn’t steer the ship. As a writer, for instance, you still want to check the facts behind each article generated by AI, and edit it for your own tone, voice, and perspective.
• Start small. AI can feel daunting and overwhelming, so identify a few tasks on your team that could potentially benefit from AI, and test out a few tools specifically designed to help you complete those tasks before thinking bigger.

It’s equally helpful to check out how other businesses are leveraging AI, and use them as inspiration.

Corresponding Content:

• How Far Are We from AI Singularity? What It Means & Implications
• How Marketers Can Use AI Assistants [+12 Best Tools]

5. The most popular type of AI used by marketers is chatbots.

You’re probably thinking — Okay, okay, I get it. AI is great. But what types of tools specifically should I be using in my role as a marketer?

For starters, the clear winner here is AI-powered chatbots. A full 66% of marketers who currently use AI are using chatbots as their preferred AI tool.

And chatbots, including ChatGPT, Bing AI, and Google Bard, are rated most effective for creating marketing content.

Prefer to make your own? Check out HubSpot’s Free Chatbot Builder, which enables you to create chatbot sequences without any coding and personalize chat replies with contact data pulled from HubSpot’s CRM.

Besides chatbots, marketers said other commonly used AI tools include visual AI tools (57%), and text generation tools (56%).

Unsure which tools are right for you? Take a look at 18 of the Best AI Chatbots for 2023.

Convinced generative AI is going to supercharge your own role? Keep reading to learn how to properly harness AI as your new superpower.

Corresponding Content:

• 4 Types of Arificial Intelligence & What Marketers Are Using Most (Research)
• 18 of the Best AI Chatbots for 2023
• What Marketers Need to Know About ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing Chatbot
• 190 ChatGPT Prompts Marketers Should Use
• Making the Most of ChatGPT [+10 Examples]

How Marketers Can Harness AI As Their Superpower

1. Become an AI prompt and AI editing superstar.

As you begin dipping your toes into the waters of generative AI, you’ll want to ensure you read up on best practices when prompting AI.

A few tips:

• Be clear, concise, and specific in your prompts.
• Request structured data, such as tables or lists, which helps the AI provide a more accurate response.
• Test out different types of prompts, such as open-ended questions or X
• Test out different prompt lengths. Sometimes, shorter is better. Other times, more details are needed.
• Be careful when prompting to ensure you’re being safe with internal customer data.
• Use actionable words in your prompts, like “Write”, “Summarize,” or “Translate”.
• Be specific on how you want the AI tool to present its output to your prompt.

Take a look at the following examples of weak versus strong prompts:

Why is the first one weak? Well, imagine if you told a junior associate at your marketing firm the same thing.

I’d imagine she’d look up at you and say, “Okay … But how long should the social media post be? Do you want me to use emojis? Which social platform are you going to post this on? And is there anything important from the introduction that you definitely want me to include?”

Treat your AI chatbot the same way you’d treat a junior associate. Provide specific, actionable prompting to get the most out of the tool.

And, if you’re curious … Here’s ChatSpot’s response:

Impressive, huh?

Similar to prompting, you’ll want to become adept at scoping out prompt responses and editing for consistency across your content, tone of voice, and always double-checking that the information is accurate.

As Ben Salzman, SVP, GTM Strategy & ZI Labs at ZoomInfo, which launched a GTM Playbook with AI tips for sales teams, puts it, “In our sales AI prompts, we include a specific person that the communication would come from, along with details about the prospect who will receive the outreach, including title and company. We also add tone guidance and constraints around how the outreach should sound, and of course, the scenario of the play.”

He adds, “We found that the more information we gave, the more time we saved when it came to editing and iteration.”

Ultimately, AI won’t replace humans — but the humans who know how to properly leverage AI will replace the humans who don’t.

2. Learn how to use AI to scale marketing campaigns.

It’s vital you take a multi-channel approach when creating content to attract prospects and engage with leads.

But that can be exhausting and time-intensive — which is where AI becomes your most beloved confidant.

As a marketer, it’s critical you learn how to leverage AI to get more bang for your buck from one single piece of content.

For instance, let’s say you start with a blog post. You might use an AI-powered chatbot to create social media and email copy to distribute that content. Additionally, you might convert the blog post into a video script so you can create an AI-powered YouTube video that revolves around the same topic.

You might even ask AI to help you turn that blog post into sales enablement materials.

AI can ultimately help you amplify your messaging across channels and distribution engines without requiring hours of coordination with other teams to create brand-new copy for various channels.

And that’s a huge win.

3. Prepare to re-evaluate your SEO strategy.

As more marketers — and consumers — begin leveraging chatbots to ask questions and seek out information rather than search engines, it stands to reason that the search landscape will change drastically. 

To ensure your website is in the best position possible, it’s vital you re-evaluate your long-term SEO strategy. 

Aja Frost, HubSpot’s Director of English Growth, told me, “SEOs have been fighting declining click-through-rates from Google since the introduction of the first search features. With the addition of AI-powered chat on the SERPs, it’s very possible Position 1 will become the only result that gets traffic. Bard shifts positions 2-10 below the fold (depending on the length of the Bard-generated answer, even the first position might be!).”

She advises, “In the short term, SEOs should evaluate which terms their websites are ranking for that are most likely to see Bard on the SERPs (likely “how” and “why” queries) and what percentage of their traffic that puts at risk. The answers will help them develop a longer-term plan — investing in ranking for lower-risk queries, finding unique ways to enrich their content that AI can’t replicate, and more.”

4. Become an explorer.

AI is still relatively new, and it can be scary to test out how you might leverage AI in your role. It might even be tempting to say, “I’ll just keep doing it the old way. Why fix what isn’t broken?”

But it’s equally risky to avoid AI, which will continue to change the way other marketers create, engage, and sell. You could be left behind if you don’t learn to leverage it for your own gain.

As HubSpot’s Bodnar puts it, “AI is going to commoditize and disrupt so many businesses that the way to prevent that is to be very bold and move forward to embrace AI as quickly as possible.”

Fortunately, this can become a fun aspect of your role. Start testing out new AI tools (a list of those can be found below). Find out which tools are most effective for your team, and share them widely across the organization. Become an explorer who is willing to slow down your current processes to test, iterate, and learn.

Trust me – in the long run, it’s worth it.

The Top AI Tools to Consider Leveraging Right Now

Here’s a quick and handy list of various AI tools suited for different needs.

AI Content Writing Tools	AI Image Generation Tools	AI Chatbots	AI SEO Tools
Content Assistant (in Beta)	DALL-E 2	ChatSpot	HubSpot AI Tools
GetGenie	Jasper Art	HubSpot Chatbot Builder	AlliAI
Writesonic	Dream by WOMBO	ChatGPT	Pro Rank Tracker
Jasper	Craiyon	Bing Chat	RankIQ
Writer	NightCafe	Google’s Bard	INK
Rytr		Intercom	Jasper
		Watson Assistant	10Web

Ultimately, the power of AI begins and ends with your own imagination: In what ways can you imagine AI supercharging your work, now and in the future?

Writing compelling emails is a superpower that most professionals would love to have. Email is the most common form of professional communication, and sending bad emails can make or break your career.

This article will provide some tips on how to write effective emails. Once you’ve applied these simple strategies, you should be able to confidently send emails to anyone and get rid of that post-send anxiety.

Here, we’ll discuss:

How to Define Your Email Goals

How To Write An Email

Email Writing Tips for International Teams

How to Define Your Email Goals

Writing an email is like creating a meal. Just as a chef needs to carefully select and prepare ingredients to create a delicious dish, you need to carefully choose your words and organize your thoughts to create a clear and effective email.

Before you start writing the email, it might help to define your email goals first. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What purpose do you want to achieve with this email?
• What are the main points you want the reader to understand?
• How can you get readers to understand those points concisely?
• What is the appropriate email etiquette or tone for this recipient?

Defining these elements can help you write quick, effective, and compelling emails.

Think about the last time you received a poorly written email. You might have had to read it a few times to understand it. The message then kicks off a long back-and-forth email thread that could have been avoided if the first email had been properly planned.

That is why we recommend taking the time to plan your communications goals first. It helps you, the sender, come across as a strong communicator while saving the reader’s time.

When you have defined your goals, then you can start crafting the email.

Writing an effective email hinges on many factors:

• You have to get the recipient to open the email.
• Your email must make the intended impression on the reader while successfully relaying the intended message.
• It must drive the recipient to take the desired action.

Failure at any point could hurt the email’s effectiveness. So, how can you prevent this? Let’s dive in.

1. Use a professional email address.

The first thing the recipient sees is your email address. First impressions matter. Sending an email from “[email protected]” to a hiring manager might give them the wrong impression about you and might create a bias against you. Always ensure that you send professional emails from a professional email address.

2. Have a compelling subject line.

Subject lines can make or break your email’s success. It’s often the deciding factor on whether someone will open your email.

Unfortunately, a lot of people struggle with this part.

Take a look at this example.

This particular subject line (real-life example by the way) is vague, indirect, and does not hint to me at all what the content of the email will be about.

The result? I might delete or ignore it altogether.

Here’s a better option.

It’s descriptive, specific, and tells me that this is an introduction.

Subject lines are especially important if you’re reaching out to someone for the first time. The recipient doesn’t know who you are, and can only judge you from your subject line.

Even if you’re sending emails internally at your company, it still pays to write a great subject line so your recipient has an idea of what to expect. Like any busy person, your teammates receive a ton of emails every day, and would certainly appreciate the extra effort of a descriptive subject line.

So, how do you write a good subject line?

Be clear, direct, and describe the content of your email. Don’t be afraid to take up the whole subject line. Here are some great examples of subject lines.

• [Action Required] Monthly Marketing Meeting
• FYI/Informational
• Request for [Insert here]
• [Reminder] Survey to Complete | Will Take 2 Minutes
• [Name] suggested I reach out to you
• I’m going to be in town next Tues — are you available?

If you’re sending a promotional email, avoid deceptive subject lines like:

• RE:
• FWD:
• Urgent
• Order confirmation
• Account Status

There’s no need to resort to sneaky tricks or clickbait titles just to induce an open. They make recipients feel cheated and tricked, according to a Litmus survey. You’ll lose trust and may end up in their junk mail as a result.

You want to associate positive feelings with your email, not anger and disappointment.

If you are sending promotional emails or newsletters, we recommend that you test different subject lines with HubSpot’s email marketing tools to see what works best for your audience. This can help you fine-tune your email strategy and improve your results over time.

3. Start with an appropriate greeting.

To kick off the email, you should begin with an appropriate greeting. There are two components to the greeting: the salutation and the opening sentence.

The appropriate salutation actually depends on the situation. If you’re writing a formal email to a bank or government institution, it would be better to start off with “Dear [X].”

If you’re sending an email to someone you know, or work in a casual environment, then it is perfectly fine to go with a “Hi [Name]” or “Hello [Name].”

There’s also “To Whom It May Concern,” when you’re sending an email to a group email and not sure who will be reading it.

One thing you want to avoid is using gendered and non-inclusive terms like “Hi guys” and “Mr./Ms/Mrs.” in your salutation.

To help you out, here is a list of salutations you can use in your emails.

• Dear [First Name]
• [Name]
• Good morning/afternoon
• Hi team
• Hey
• Hi there

Pro tip: When you are sending an email to a person for the first time, we recommend personalizing the email by addressing the recipient by name. Also, include specific details about their company and make sure to introduce yourself.

This shows that you have done your research and are genuinely interested in them. It can also help you build rapport with them and set the tone for future interactions.

4. Have a strong attention grabber.

Once you’ve gotten the salutation out of the way, it’s time to start your email.

While the subject line determines whether your email is opened, your opening sentence determines whether your email is read till the end.

Author and business coach Daniel Pink recommends using the “20-second rule” when writing emails. This means that you should try to make your main point within the first 20 seconds of the email, as this is the amount of time many people will spend reading it.

If it’s an introduction, you can open with something you know will interest your recipient. You can find this out through a little research on their social media profiles. Perhaps they Tweeted something interesting or recently posted something on LinkedIn you can reference.

This will help you build rapport and show that you’re not sending a generic email to multiple people.

Of course, this is not necessary if you’re emailing a colleague or someone you know. Instead, establish some kind of context so that they know what’s happening.

With a colleague, start with the “why.”

No one has the time (and patience) to guess what an email is about. The sooner you answer the “why,” the faster you’ll capture their attention.

Quick tip: If you’re sending out sales emails and need inspiration on exactly what to say, take a look at HubSpot’s free email templates. With this tool, you can access a library of built-in templates designed for each stage of the customer journey.

5. Keep your message concise.

We send and receive roughly 347 billion emails a day worldwide, according to Statista.

This statistic makes one thing very clear: We spend a lot of time reading emails. And because of this, many people simply scan emails to get the essence of the message and move on to the next.

With this in mind, you want to optimize your email for readability and scannability. This includes:

• Keeping paragraphs short.
• Adding bullet points.
• Using visuals to break up the text.
• Utilizing formatting tools, such as bolding or italicizing, to help draw the reader’s attention to important points.
• Using active language and avoiding jargon or technical terms that may not be familiar to the reader.

No one is eagerly awaiting a three-page essay to arrive in their inbox. Think about it this way: What’s the main takeaway from your email and is there a particular action you want your recipient to take?

From there, draft your email and when you re-read it, make sure every line you add is helping you meet this goal. If it’s not, remove it.

When you need to include a lot of information in an email, it’s probably better to suggest a phone call or a meeting instead. You can use HubSpot’s free meeting scheduler to book your meetings faster.

6. Be consistent with your font.

If I get an email like this, I’m immediately deleting or assuming it’s a scam.

This is an example of what not to do. There are several fonts used in the email, different font sizes along with different colors. As a result, the eye doesn’t know where to go and it’s a bit overwhelming.

Furthermore, the message gets lost, as your recipient is too distracted by all these elements fighting for their attention.

So, as a rule of thumb: Stick to one font. If you want to use a secondary one, use it sparingly. Follow the same rule for color.

If you’re using a non-English keyboard, your fonts may not show up properly on the other person’s device. Instead, use web-safe email fonts like:

• Arial.
• Courier.
• Georgia.
• Helvetica.
• Lucida Sans.
• Tahoma.
• Times New Roman.
• Trebuchet MS.
• Verdana.

In fact, this is the exact list Gmail gives.

This will ensure that your recipient will receive your message in a regular font, regardless of device or operating system.

7. Check the tone of your message.

The tone is an essential element of a professional email. It’s always helpful to start the email off in a friendly, positive tone. Here are some examples:

• “It was a pleasure meeting you at [X event].”
• “I hope you had a great weekend.”
• “Thanks for your contributions today in [X meeting].”

However, you will also want to avoid overuse of things like exclamations points and emojis, which can come across as unprofessional to certain audiences. It’s important to know the seriousness of the content and the person you are addressing to decide the tone of your email.

For example, you’ll use different tones for a thank you email after a final interview versus a status update to a peer colleague.

By reading through your email before sending it, you can ensure that the tone of voice you have used fits with your message and intended audience.

8. Write a simple closing.

Once you’re done with the content of your email, it’s time to close it off.

You don’t have to make it fancy — just keep your closing simple and straightforward.

So, nothing like this.

Instead, stick to the safe, proven closing lines and you should be good.

You can choose from some of the most common closing lines below.

• Sincerely
• Best regards
• Best
• Warm regards
• Warm wishes
• Kind regards
• Kind wishes
• Thank you
• Take care

Make sure to use a strong call-to-action (CTA) to clearly convey what you want the recipient to do next. This could be scheduling a call, filling out a form, or visiting a specific webpage.

9. Use a professional signature

Try to add a professional signature to the end of your email. Use an email signature that specifies your full name, your role, and the company you work for. You can include your company’s website and social media links.

For example, see the email signature below.

Make sure that you use simple signatures when the initial email turns into a long thread.

If you are sending an email to a coworker you should probably skip the company website and social media handles. You can make it easy on yourself by saving 2 or 3 signature templates and using the relevant ones in the emails you send.

10. Practice email etiquette for each work situation.

Different work situations require different types of correspondence. Yes, all of the other rules still apply, but every situation is different.

For example, let’s say you interviewed for a job and you want to send a follow-up email after the interview. How do you go about it?

First, you personalize the email by addressing the recipient by their first name, then you express your gratitude for their time, put some emphasis on your interest in the job, and ask about the next steps in the hiring process. For instance:

Dear [interviewer’s name],

I hope your day is going well. Thank you again for the opportunity to interview for [ job title] with [ company name]. It was a pleasure to meet you and the team.

I’m following up to see if there are any updates regarding [ job title] from my interview on [date]. I’m really excited about the opportunity. If you need any more information, please let me know.

Thank you again for your time and consideration. I hope to hear from you soon!

Best regards,

[Your name]

This outline works great after an interview. However, the format would change for a different request. For example, you would use a different tone if you were asking your boss for some time off.

Be sure to familiarize yourself with professional email etiquette to help you craft the perfect message each time.

11. Use CC and BCC fields wisely.

The more people that get added to an email chain, the more complex and tricky it can be to navigate. Remember proper etiquette when using CC and BCC fields in an email. Here’s a quick reminder:

• If you want a contact to view and respond to an email, use the CC field.
• If you are sending an email that doesn’t need a response to a wide list, use the BCC field.
• Use can also use BCC if you think the recipient won’t need to be involved in future conversations.

The main thing to consider when using these fields is the relevance to the recipient. You want to ensure that the proper stakeholders have the information they need without overwhelming them with email communications.

12. Schedule your emails.

A survey by Sleep Advisor found that around 78% of Americans check their email before they go into work each day.

Another study by Litmus on the State of Email Engagement in the United States supports this. In fact, the most popular time for reading emails is in the morning. Open rates start around 6 a.m. but usually peak between 9 a.m. and noon local time.

Given this information, you can follow one of two strategies: Send your email in the morning when you know they’re scrolling, or wait for a less busy time.

On one hand, your email runs the risk of being buried if you send it in the morning. However, if you wait for a later time, your email may never get opened.

It takes trial and error to figure out what works best when emailing your team.

If you’re writing an email to someone in another state or country, factor in time zones. Noon for you may be 7 pm for someone else. As such, keep in mind who your recipient is and when they would be most receptive to your email.

Pro tip: You can use our free email scheduling tool to ensure that your emails are sent at the right time.

13. Do a final spelling and grammar check.

You’re almost there. Don’t fumble in the home stretch.

Imagine spending time crafting a perfect message, only to be ignored because the email is riddled with spelling and grammar errors.

Once you finish drafting your email, copy and paste it into Microsoft Word or Google Docs to give it a quick grammar, phrasing, and spelling check.

Alternatively, you can also use free checkers like Grammarly to automate the process while you’re drafting.

Image Source

Next, read the message out loud to make sure the sentences aren’t too long, sound clunky, or robotic. You want your email copy to sound human.

All of these tips help the reader focus on your message, not the other elements of your email.

Pro tip: Change the “undo send” option to 30 seconds. We tend to catch our mistakes seconds after the email is already sent. Extending the “undo send” option time helps to eliminate the possibility of sending a bad email.

This is a standard setting that you can change in all of the email apps. Instead of the default time period, update to 30 seconds to minimize risk.

14. Schedule a follow-up reminder.

A thoughtful follow-up email can help make sure your email gets read. Working professionals are often very busy juggling a variety of meetings, deadlines, and obligations. It’s not abnormal to forget to respond to an email promptly.

However, don’t follow up too soon. Wait a few days unless the message is urgent.

That’s it! To make writing emails even easier and quicker, use HubSpot’s drag and drop email builder.

Email Writing Tips for International Teams

Most people won’t tell you this, but crafting a good email begins even before you put down a single word. It starts with your mindset.

When you’re in the correct frame of mind, you’ll be able to write effective emails that communicate and persuade.

Sounds logical … but how do you enter the “correct frame of mind”? Well, there are two ways: Put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and write the way you talk.

More on that below.

Imagine receiving the email you’re writing.

Have you ever received an email that was so incoherent you couldn’t even finish reading it, let alone even consider replying? Or included a completely irrelevant proposition?

One of the biggest problems when it comes to email writing is the lack of empathy for the recipient. Ask yourself these questions:

• Why am I emailing this person?
• Is this the right person to contact, considering what I’m trying to achieve?
• Is my message clear and to the point?
• Would this be better discussed in a meeting?
• Does each line help or hurt my goal?

This is especially important when emailing someone new but still valuable when contacting a colleague.

Write like you talk.

If you’re not a native English speaker, it’s normal to feel like you should be more formal when it comes to your email writing.

However, this results in emails that are too formal, and come off as awkward or stiff. For example:

Native English speakers write more informally. Their writing sounds like one person talking to another.

Here is a quick grammar tip that will always help you sound more native: Write in an active voice and avoid the passive voice.

An “active voice” shows that a subject is performing the verb’s action. For example, “Marilyn mailed the letter.”

In contrast, the “passive voice” shows that the verb is acted upon by the subject. In this case, “The letter was mailed by Marilyn.”

Instead of writing “your feedback would be much appreciated”, try saying “I would appreciate your feedback.” Instead of writing “your request has been received”, try “I received your request.”

Notice how writing in an active voice sounds more human.

Composing an email is like having a conversation. Just as you would consider the tone in a face-to-face conversation, you should consider the tone and style of your emails to make sure they are respectful and appropriate for the recipient.

Be an Expert Email Writer

Writing an email shouldn’t be daunting. By following these simple tips, more of your messages will get read. Soon, you’ll gain more confidence as an email writer and have a reputation as a top communicator at work.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you’re reading this, you likely want to ask for a promotion but are unsure how to approach the topic. It makes sense because asking for a promotion can be nerve-wracking, but it’s necessary for career growth.

If you want to know how to ask for a promotion, you’ve come to the right blog. Here’s how you can prepare for the conversation beforehand and how to discuss it with your superiors.

When to Ask for a Promotion

How to Ask for a Promotion at Work

When to Ask for a Promotion

Before asking your superiors about a promotion, ask yourself if now is the time. Below are a few cases where it’s most likely time to ask for a promotion.

Your work has positively impacted the business.

All your work in your current position is necessary for pushing the business forward. Still, if you notice your work is making a measurable difference — you could have an excellent case for a promotion.

Keep a log of all your accomplishments, such as revenue-boosting projects or highly successful campaigns. Furthermore, ask your manager if you have any other opportunities to impact the business more.

You’ve taken on more responsibilities.

Look at your job description and assess whether your current responsibilities go beyond the initial scope of your job.

It’s normal for a job’s duties to evolve, but if you notice your position is growing into more of a leadership or management role — it could be time for a promotion.

Discuss with your manager the expectations for your current position and how they can fit into a higher role.

You’re ready to grow within the company.

If you’ve been in your current role for at least a year or two, you may feel ready to move and apply the experience you’ve acquired to a more significant role. It’s common for companies to hire internally to save time and resources.

So, if you notice a position in your company is open and think you’d be a great fit, speak to your manager about the opportunity.

You may have a greater advantage than other candidates due to your experience and familiarity with the company.

How to Ask for a Promotion at Work

Before asking for a promotion, research the skills necessary for the role you wish to assume and try to have early conversations with your manager about your career trajectory.

Once you feel like you’re ready to take your career to the next level with a promotion, keep the following tips in mind:

Consider your relationship with your manager.

If you’re on good terms then you can likely have a candid talk with you manager about your career trajectory.

The best managers are the ones who know how to create or find opportunities that combine your skills, interests, and challenges, so these are some things to outline before the conversation.

However, if your relationship with your boss isn’t so splendid, or they are not in a decision-making position, look higher. Figure out who the best person is to speak with, even if they work in a different department.

Be aware of the promotion process.

Before you can ask, you must check to see if there is a formal process you and your manager must follow when handling promotions. Do you have to be at the company for a specific time?

Is there a particular way you need to communicate about promotions?

If you need to figure out your company’s formal procedure regarding promotion, or if it has one at all, then you need to ask your manager.

If you’re nervous about asking your manager about the formal process before discussing a promotion, career strategist Jennifer Brick says to remember one thing:

“If you’re not having an open and candid conversation with your boss about your career ambition and the fact that you want to get a promotion, you’re not putting them into a position where they’re going to be able to help you get it.”

Brick says your manager will be best poised to give you the support and guidance you need to advance within the company.

“[Having that discussion] will make your life so much easier,” she says. “And it’s going to increase your likelihood of getting the promotion and a pay increase, whether you have a formal process or don’t.”

Approach a promotion as an investment.

“In essence, you are asking the company to invest in you,” says Patrick Barr, owner and managing partner of Barr Performance Coaching.

“Therefore, we need to see it as an investment decision, and therefore we need to think about it as a business case,” he says.

Barr says that while job promotions impact the individual, taking the “personal” and emotions out of the question and approaching the topic from a strictly business stance is essential.

“The first thing you need to think about is your impact on the company,” explains Barr. “What is it that you deliver? What is it that you bring in terms of value to the organization that makes it appropriate for the organization to pay you more?”

Barr also suggests making the decision easy for your boss because your boss still has to make a case to their superiors for why you should get a pay raise or promotion.

“The best way to do that is to write out, very clearly, the improvements you have made over the last 12 months in your role and the improvement you plan to drive in the future,” he said.

Align your promotion with the company’s success.

Career Coach Brittany Hayles of Hayles Consulting agrees with keeping a highlight reel of your progress and achievement within your role to present to your manager when you’re ready for a promotion.

Hayles also suggests highlighting how a promotion benefits the company and your team.

She explains:

“In addition to talking about those career highlights and how amazing you are, now align it to say, ‘Because I’ve done all these amazing things when I get promoted, it’s going to give me more autonomy to do even more amazing things.”

Hayles says to focus on autonomy.

“A promotion is supposed to lead to more autonomy,” she says. “It’s supposed to lead to the opportunity to have more control over leadership — whether you’re leading more people or leading more processes.”

So, emphasize moments where you took the initiative alone without being told what to do. This will show that you can be trusted to be more autonomous in your next role.

Essentially, you want to keep your manager in the loop of your career aspirations, and you’ll need to pitch your promotion as something that will benefit the company and not just yourself.

To do this, start keeping track of your progress and achievement as soon as possible, so you can make your case that a promotion will bring the company closer to its goals.

And no matter what — be confident! If you want the company to believe in your promotion, you must first believe in yourself.

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team.

Hollywood screenwriters are now two weeks into their strike against major networks and streaming companies.

The strike, which is expected to last well into summer, began on May 2 after six weeks of failed negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) which represents over 11,000 working screenwriters, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) which negotiates on behalf of major entertainment companies including Disney, Paramount, and Amazon.  

According to the WGA, median weekly writer-producer pay has dropped by 23% over the past decade. A major contributor to this drop is the rise of streaming platforms that call for shorter seasons for shows and less job security for writers compared to network television.

Demands of the strike include increased pay, job stability, and considerations around the use of artificial intelligence.

Networks Are Bracing for Impact

Live shows including Saturday Night Live and late-night talk shows were immediately impacted by the strike, airing reruns or going off the air completely. The strike has also delayed production for many scripted shows.

Beyond production, this strike could have a major impact on the TV industry’s bottom line.

Many television networks and streaming platforms rely on advertising for revenue, which could be threatened if there’s no fresh content to air. While some streaming services have a backlog of content to release, they could run out or see an influx of canceled subscriptions depending on how long the strike lasts.

If networks and streaming services are unable to air new content, advertisers could be looking to shift dollars elsewhere.

Sounds Familiar…

This isn’t the first time screenwriters have walked out.

In 1988, members of the WGA went on strike for 153 days due to disagreements with the AMPTP over residual payments, creative rights, and production cost cuts. Most recently, from 2007-08, WGA writers went on strike for 14 weeks demanding compensation for new media (mainly online content) and residuals from DVD sales.

The latter strike resulted in the disruption and cancellation of a number of popular scripted shows and cost the California economy $2.1 billion. During this period, networks leaned into the production of nonscripted reality TV shows to keep advertising dollars rolling in and audiences engaged.

This time around, advertisers and audiences have more options.

Other forms of media have debuted and become widely adopted since the last strike ended in 2008. Between social media ads, podcast placements, and influencer marketing, advertisers have plenty of other places to spend their budgets if the current strike persists.

And with apps like TikTok and YouTube vying to be top entertainment platforms, audiences have other places to give their attention.

Elsewhere in Marketing

The latest marketing news and strategy insights.

Twitter has a new boss. Former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino is the app’s new CEO.

Meta just introduced a new advertising tool that enlists AI to run more efficient campaigns.

Google lifted the waitlist for its AI chatbot Bard and introduced new features including multi-language support, and export capabilities.

European Union considers implementing stricter cybersecurity protections for non-EU companies including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

ByteDance is slowing down the rollout of TikTok’s in-app shopping platform.

Have you ever spoken with customer service via a chatbot? If you’re like me, you sometimes wonder if the other voice is a human or an astute AI assistant.

An AI assistant mimics human-like interactions and can assist in various activities — from organizing your inbox to responding to customer queries.

But how can AI assistants help marketers? Here, we’ll cover a variety of use cases, along with 12 AI tools for productivity, time management, and more.

Where Marketers Can Best Use AI Assistants

Personalizing customer support.

Increasingly, consumers want personalized support at all hours of the day. However, many customer service teams don’t have the bandwidth to provide round-the-clock assistance.

Manav Monga, Co-Founder and Head of Product Management at Heymarket, believes AI can give customer service teams a huge lift. For instance, AI assistants — like chatbots — can quickly retrieve relevant information, guide customers through common issues, and provide accurate answers, all without human intervention.

However, Monga warns that chatbots are only as good as the information you give them. “You should give it detailed scripts with information from help articles, templates, and your knowledge base. That way, it can give relevant and actionable responses to your customers,” he advises.

Managing your calendar and inbox.

Email is a common time sink for marketers. On average, working professionals spend 28% of the day reading and replying to emails. However, depending on the volume of emails you get, this percentage could skyrocket.

Luckily, marketers now have powerful AI tools at their disposal to help manage their inbox and calendar. For instance, these tools can prioritize incoming emails, flag urgent messages, and filter spam.

Another time sink is scheduling meetings. Marketers must manage their calendar, schedule meetings, work around conflicts, and provide reminders — which can become a full-time job in itself.

AI assistants have powerful capabilities in calendar management. They can suggest suitable meeting times, send invitations (and reminders) to participants, and seamlessly handle rescheduling requests.

Creating content.

Many marketers are starting to use AI to streamline the creative process. For instance, if you’re a video marketer, you can generate video scripts, create B-roll footage, add music, and even generate a talking head — all using AI-powered tools like Runway AI and Descript.

Whether you need to create videos, blog posts, email copy, or social media content, AI can help expedite parts of the creation process. That said, AI can lay the groundwork for creating content, but you still need to add your own human touch, perspective, and brand voice to the final product.

Getting a fuller understanding of your customers.

Many AI assistants become more effective over time. For instance, every time you interact with ChatGPT, it learns from your responses.

In Monga’s words: “AI assistants continuously monitor conversations and update their training dataset to give more refined responses. As these bots continue to gather valuable information, they offer a fuller understanding of customers.”

For marketers, these conversations can paint a more detailed picture of their customers, revealing deeper insight into their demographics, buying behavior, and intent.

Automating tedious tasks.

AI assistants can take many tedious and repetitive tasks off the hands of marketers, freeing up more time to focus on higher-level strategy and planning.

For instance, a marketer can create a piece of content — like a blog post — in a fraction of the time using AI-powered writing tools. With that extra time, she can focus on distributing that content across social media or converting it into another piece of content (e.g., a LinkedIn post or a YouTube video script).

12 Best AI Assistants

Best AI Assistants for Managing Calendars and Inboxes

Best AI Assistants for Writing

Best AI Assistants for Meetings

Best AI Assistants for Boosting Productivity

Best AI Assistants for Managing Calendars and Inboxes

Clockwise

Do you struggle to find uninterrupted time to work between meetings? For instance, you may have 15 minutes of “heads down” work in the morning, 30 minutes in the afternoon, and a solid hour in the evening. What you really need is dedicated time to focus, create, and innovate.

Clockwise combines all these moments of uninterrupted time into “blocks” on your calendar (fittingly titled “Focus Time”). In addition, you can mark certain meetings as “Flexible” and Clockwise will find the best time for participants to meet. As a result, each day is designed with your productivity in mind.

Superhuman

As the workplace mantra goes, “A clear mind starts with a clear inbox.” But if your inbox has a life of its own, Superhuman is here to help. It divides your inbox in half (called “Split Inbox”) and organizes your emails based on priority. That way, you can see the most important emails in one place.

If you want to follow up on a specific email in a few days or weeks, you can set a reminder for Superhuman to notify you. Or, you can hit “Snooze,” which temporarily removes the email from your inbox for a set period.

Another great feature is “Read Status,” which signals when someone has read your email and on which device. This enables you to follow up with the right message at the right time.

Motion

Motion puts the traditional to-do list to shame. Simply input all your tasks and Motion will build a schedule to get it all done. It automatically prioritizes tasks, re-schedules them, and guards time for uninterrupted work.

Motion also doubles as a project management tool, helping teams manage deadlines and stay on track. After inputting the project tasks, Motion will create an optimized schedule for each team member. You can also organize any notes, sub-tasks, and comments from your team in one central location.

Best AI Assistants for Writing

Jasper

Jasper is a copywriter’s best friend. It can generate social media posts, blogs, articles, and email copy in a matter of seconds. All you need is a well-written prompt (e.g., “Tell me the benefits of TikTok marketing in the style of a LinkedIn post.”).

Jasper takes it one step further by helping marketers with technical SEO. It can write keyword-optimized content, fix duplicate text, and suggest the best headers, meta tags, and descriptions.

Genei

If you get bogged down in the research phase, Genei can do the heavy lifting for you.

Genei analyzes large amounts of information – like research papers, blogs, e-books, and articles — and summarizes the key takeaways and identifies the most prominent keywords. This speeds up the writing process, helping you move one step closer to putting pen to paper.

Cohesive

AI-powered writing tools are only as good as the prompts you give them. Of course, writing the perfect prompt is challenging, and Cohesive wants to eliminate that struggle. It does this by offering a variety of templates that fit different content needs.

For instance, Cohesive has a template for Instagram captions, Facebook posts, and YouTube videos. Pick a template, input your information, and Cohesive will take care of the rest.

Best AI Assistants for Meetings

Beautiful AI

Do your presentations need a makeover? Or do you feel tired of the same old PowerPoint templates? Beautiful AI could be the solution.

Beautiful AI is a presentation software that enables you to create attractive and impactful presentations and reports. You can hit the ground running by choosing from hundreds of pre-built slides. Once you start adding images and text, Beautiful AI will automatically reformat these elements on the slide in real-time. Plus, you can unlock millions of icons and images when you sign up.

Grain

With Grain, you never have to take notes during a meeting again. This handy tool automatically records and transcribes meetings – and conveniently excludes any “ums,” “ahs,” and other filler words.

What’s more, Grain will automatically highlight, clip, and summarize key moments during the meeting that you (and your team) can revisit later.

Krisp

Picture this: you’re about to give an important presentation during a video call. Suddenly, your neighbor starts mowing their lawn – and now you have to speak over the persistent hum of the lawn mower.

While we can’t anticipate every possible interruption, Krisp can alleviate most of them during audio and video calls.

Krisp is a useful tool that mutes background noise and boosts voice clarity. Whether working from home, the office, or in a busy coffee shop, you can guarantee professional sound quality.

Best AI Assistants for Boosting Productivity

ChatSpot

ChatSpot harnesses the power of Generative AI with your HubSpot CRM. Combined, HubSpot users can save a lot of time.

You can think of ChatSpot as a handy virtual assistant. You can ask it to draft an email, add a contact to your CRM, create a report, and more. Simply put, this tool reduces the steps needed to get your job done.

To learn more about the tool, check out this helpful guide.

Notion AI

Notion is a popular productivity app that recently introduced a suite of AI-powered tools to take your work to the next level. If you already have a Notion account, these tools are baked right into the app.

With Notion AI, you can complete a number of tasks in a fraction of the time. For instance, it can take your messy notes and summarize them, outline key takeaways, and even populate a list of action items from the information. On top of that, it offers powerful writing, researching, and editing tools.

Trevor AI

Between meetings, deadlines, and unexpected interruptions, it can be easy to lose track of time at work. This is where Trevor AI can help.

This tool makes time blocking easy. Simply write out a list of tasks and drag-and-drop them into your calendar. Over time, Trevor AI learns and adapts to your scheduling patterns. For instance, it will start estimating how long certain tasks will take. It can also find available time on your calendar and make overdue tasks visible.

The best part? Trevor AI syncs with Google Calendar, Outlook/Office365, and Todolist.

Back to You

AI assistants have emerged as powerful tools to revolutionize the way marketers work. By incorporating these tools into your workflow, you can boost your productivity, save time, streamline processes, and gain valuable insights into your customers.

When ChatGPT came on the scene last year, it changed the entire artificial intelligence industry. This generative AI tool produces answers to almost any question it’s asked.

And it’s already considered one of the best chatbots ever created.

Generative AI is the newest form of artificial intelligence that’s making headlines. While the technology isn’t new, AI can now create authentic content that’s usable in marketing.

In this post, we’ll review what generative AI is, its benefits, limitations, use cases, and tools to add to your marketing stack.

What is generative AI?

Benefits of Using Generative AI

Limitations of Using Generative AI

When to Use Generative AI

Generative AI Tools

How does it work? Generative AI starts with a prompt. Write instructions for what you’d like the AI to create. Then, you can customize the results with feedback on style or tone.

Benefits of Using Generative AI

With proper usage, AI can yield amazing results. We’ll discuss the benefits of using AI below.

1. Generative AI can create marketing content.

Generative AI can help create content, including blogs, images, emails for a lead nurturing sequence, and more. This will reduce the amount of time marketers spend creating.

Ultimately, it will simplify their process so they can spend more time strategizing.

These tools can also help marketers summarize complex information and create images for their marketing assets.

If you’re wary about having AI generate all of your work, tools like HubSpot’s content assistant can assist more broadly in the content creation process.

The content assistant can generate outlines for your posts or offer suggestions when you face writer’s block.

Start using content assistant today.

2. Generative AI can assist sales reps.

Generative can reduce the amount of effort a sales rep has to put into responding to client emails by writing the emails for them.

You can even specify the tone of your message. Perhaps you’d like something formal for new prospects and informal for long-held contacts. AI can help you appeal to both audiences.

3. Generative AI can improve responses to queries.

Distilling information is made much easier with generative AI. Many tools write responses to general queries. You can then quickly deliver complex information in an easier-to-understand way.

This can be especially useful for your service team. Let’s say it’s after hours, and your support staff has already clocked out. Generative AI can help answer simple questions that aren’t already pre-loaded in your chatbot.

Limitations of Using Generative AI

While generative AI is an interesting tactic for marketers to consider, you’ll want to keep these factors top of mind:

• Accuracy of results. Results should be reviewed to see whether the information is accurate and what source was used to create the content.
• Cybersecurity. New technology opens the door to new and unknown threats from bad actors. Avoid putting sensitive data or information directly into AI channels.

Beyond that, there are three major AI limitations that your marketing should know.

1. Copyright Infringement

Generative AI uses data (meaning other content) to help inform its output. These tools can promote plagiarism by ignoring the original content’s creators. You won’t find proper backlinking and sourcing in this content.

Plagiarism damages trust in your brand. And, you may also face copyright claims. Without proper attribution, you may infringe upon someone else’s work.

2. Quality.

Generative AI requires a lot of data to produce authentic, quality content. Human editors are still needed to review AI-generated content before publication.

Additionally, even if the content is high-quality, generative AI makes it harder to identify accurate or inaccurate information.

You’ll want fact-checkers to ensure all of the information from AI is true. Plus, it’s easier to create deep fakes (here’s photographic evidence).

3. Content Bias

The content generative AI produces may use biased original sources. That means the output may have a certain lean, even if that’s not your intention.

Without knowing where the information comes from, you’ll have a harder time assessing bias or accuracy in a piece of writing.

When to Use Generative AI

1. Creating Marketing Content

Generative AI can create marketing content, including text, images, videos, and audio. If you ever get stuck finding the right words, AI can become a handy assistant.

For example, AI can create a blog post, a photo caption, an email, social media copy, or product descriptions. Plus, it can help create photorealistic art and graphics to include in your marketing campaigns.

You’ll want to make sure a member of your team reviews the content made by AI. This human editor can make sure the output matches your brand’s voice. They should also check for factual clarity and bias.

2. Customer Service and Technical Support Chatbots

This type of artificial intelligence can be used for customer support chatbots, whether that’s on your website or via SMS text support.

This can speed up response time to customer inquiries and free up reps to address more complex issues.

3. Writing Email Responses

Sales reps can also benefit from using generative AI to write email responses. If your reps are tired of writing messages in bulk, generative AI can create custom messages with specific tones — all in seconds.

Further, AI can help pull data from your CRM to ensure personalized messaging. If you’re looking to get started, dive into ChatSpot.

This AI bot uses chat-based commands to interact with your CRM data, so you know the full history of any client you contact.

4. Product demonstrations.

Generative AI can be particularly useful for product demonstrations as well. For example, if you want to create a demo video, you can use generative AI tools to make it for you.

AI can also make suggestions to help you improve the user experience. You can have AI write you a script or answer any questions you have during the post-production process.

Generative AI Tools

Now we know about generative AI and how to use it in marketing, but what specific tools can you use? Let’s dive in below.

1. Content Assistant From HubSpot

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Content assistant tools from HubSpot can help you craft copy of any length in seconds. You can easily switch between manual and AI content creation to write posts, landing pages, marketing emails, and more.

Content assistant can help you throughout the writing process. The tool can generate ideas for blog posts and create an outline to help guide you.

Price: Free

Best for: Marketers and copywriters

What we love: Content assistant can help you optimize your text for SEO.

2. ChatSpot

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ChatSpot is a conversational CRM bot that you can connect to HubSpot. With chat-based commands, you can interact with your CRM data. You can also send emails or pull insights by entering a text prompt.

ChatSpot also has the ability to write long-form content. You can use this tool to generate drafts for your blog.

Price: Free

Best for: Marketers and sales teams

What we love: ChatSpot can help you research the topics you’ll cover in your blog posts.

3. Writesonic

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Writesonic is one of the best generative AI tools for creating any type of creative copy. This tool can help you create SEO-optimized content for your blogs, ads, emails, and website 10 times faster.

Start by inputting the topic you’d like to cover and the language you’re writing in. From there, Writesonic can generate ideas for your post in the form of suggested titles. Then, you can prompt AI to write you an intro, an outline, or the full article.

Price: Plans start at $12.67 per month annually. Custom plans are available.

Best for: Marketers and agencies

What we like: Writesonic offers integrations with WordPress, Zapier, and SEMrush.

4. Jasper

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If your team is looking for an AI solution, consider Jasper. This generative AI offers a wide range of services that can benefit multiple members of your team.

Jasper can help craft emails, social messaging, and blog posts. You can even prompt the AI to make art.

Let’s say you want to write a blog post. Just open a new document in Jasper’s interface. You can input the topic, a content brief, your desired tone, and relevant keywords. Text appears once you press generate.

If you keep clicking “generate,” AI will base additional text on what’s already been written in the document.

Jasper uses a similar process when generating art. You can describe your ideal image, the style of the piece, and the artistic medium. From there, AI does the rest.

Price: A starter plan costs $40 per month annually. Boss Mode plans cost $82 per month annually. Custom pricing is available for businesses.

Best for: Teams

What we like: Jasper integrates with Chrome and emphasizes collaborating with team members in real time.

5. Synthesia

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Synthesia is one of the best options for AI-driven video content. The platform uses AI to create realistic AI avatars with voiceover capabilities. You can customize your avatars’ appearances, voices, and languages.

Then, all you need to do is upload your script.

Soon, you’ll have a life-like video without hours spent on production. With, Synthesia you can easily create both training and product marketing videos.

Price: Personal plans start at $30 per month annually. Enterprise pricing is available upon request.

Best for: Marketing teams producing video content

What we like: The platform comes with a free media library, and you can upload your media brand guidelines.

6. Bardeen

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If you’re looking to automate away time-intensive tasks, Bardeen is here to help. This AI-powered tool integrates with your email, calendars, messaging, apps, and more so you can work more efficiently.

Users can ask Bardeen to automate email scheduling, manage tasks, or make smart recommendations for text.

Bardeen is also an excellent option for analyzing data from a variety of sites. Its scraper lets you extract website data directly into web apps and sheets.

Price: Free plans are available. Professional plans start at $10 a month.

Best for: Recruiters, sales, and marketing teams

What we like: Bardeen allows AI to automate manual workflows to increase productivity.

7. Copy.ai

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If you have writer’s block or are just tired of rephrasing the same message for different tweets, Copy.ai can help. This platform can help you write long-form content and social media messages optimized for different platforms.

Start by specifying the platform you’re writing for. Then, give the AI context for your post. That could be a topic and keyword or, for social media, a section of a report. Then, Copy.ai can generate text.

If you’re creating social copy, Copy.ai will generate multiple options for you to use. You can choose which works best or schedule them all.

Price: Plans start at $36 per month annually.

Best for: Teams, bloggers

What We Like: Copy.ai is a great option for those that are just getting started with artificial intelligence. It can help you write blog posts, high-converting social media posts, and engaging emails.

8. ChatGPT

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ChatGPT is a conversational artificial intelligence that can help with a variety of tasks. You can use ChatGPT to compose emails and create any type of marketing copy.

Just type a command into the platform’s interface, and you’ll get a response. You can ask ChatGPT to help you research different topics, create new copy, or paraphrase existing work.

Price: ChatGPT is currently free. Plus plans start at $20 per month.

Best for: Individual bloggers

What we like: ChatGPT is the first generative AI that’s seen high levels of success and adoption. This means it has a large dataset to learn from.

9. Rephrase.AI

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Rephrase.AI is another generative AI platform that focuses on providing personalized videos for your marketing needs. This tool can convert plain text, such as your blogs, into professional-quality videos in minutes.

The company emphasizes repurposing old content to improve the customer journey and your marketing campaigns.

Price: Personal plans start at $25 per month. Enterprise pricing is available upon request.

Best for: Teams creating videos

What we like: Not only does Rephrase.ai help make the videos, the tool can help you track and analyze the performance of your campaign.

10. Soundraw

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Soundraw is highly accessible and can quickly create high-quality music for a variety of marketing applications. You can use this tool to create a theme song for your company’s podcast or background music for an explainer video.

Price: Free; Personal, $16.99/month annually

Best for: Content and video creators, podcasters, streamers

What we like: Maybe you don’t know exactly what you want your song to sound like, but you have a general idea of the video’s atmosphere. Soundraw allows you to sort by mood.

11. Designs.ai

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Designs.ai is a generative AI platform that allows users to create, edit, and scale content. You can create logos, videos, voiceovers, visual designs, and marketing copy.

Our favorite element of this software is the ability to collaborate and share projects across teams.

Price: Basic plans cost $19 per month annually. Pro plans cost $49 per month annually. Enterprise pricing is available upon request.

Best for: Brand owners and teams

What we like: Designs.ai can make stunning visuals. However, it also has a text-to-speech feature that allows you to convert scripts to audio.

12. Easy Peasy AI Chat

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Easy Peasy AI Chat has templates for any type of marketing copy you need to create. It can also help you create images, podcast notes, and social media posts.

Price: Free; Basic, $4.99/month annually; Starter, $8/month annually; Pro, $18/month annually

Best for: Teams

What we like: We love the “write like a native speaker” option. This can keep your brand conversational no matter where in the world you operate.

Using Generative AI

Generative AI may be new on the scene, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. While it can be particularly useful for marketing teams, it’s important to be aware of the limitations of the technology.

Find the tools to help your marketing team save time and optimize resources to make the most of how AI can improve your productivity.

Ah, AI. It’s quickly become one of the buzziest words of 2023, akin to the popularity of the phrase “new normal” in 2022.

And for good reason. AI is poised to completely revolutionize the ways in which we work, interact, and even play.

I’ve been on the HubSpot Blog team for over five years, and in that time, I’ve seen plenty of changes. Back in 2017, for instance, we completely upended our blog infrastructure with the introduction of the pillar-cluster model.

And then, in 2018, we ditched our weekly “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” brainstorming process in favor of something a little more, well, efficient: the Search Insights Reports, which we still use today.

But none of these changes seem to compare to what’s coming with AI. Here, I’ll explain how HubSpot’s Blog team plans to leverage AI without sacrificing the “human element” that makes our content successful in the first place.

(P.S. We’re still figuring this out just like you are, so think of this as a working doc that I’ll update periodically as we shift our AI strategies in the future.)

How the HubSpot Blog Team Leverages AI 

1. The HubSpot Blog Team Will Use Generative AI to Learn About Topics Faster — But We Won’t Use AI Alone to Create Content.

One of the strongest benefits of generative AI is its ability to scan the web and provide concise, helpful responses based on vast sources of information.

In other words: As a writer, I don’t turn to Google first anymore for information. Instead, I turn to AI.

For instance, the other day I needed to write a post about — ironically — the differences between ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Bing’s new AI-powered search engine.

So I asked ChatGPT: “Can you tell me the differences between ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Bing’s AI-powered search engine? Please put the pros and cons in a table format.”

Here’s what I got back:

Notice I didn’t ask ChatGPT to write the post for me.

On our team, we are not using AI to write full posts. Instead, our criteria is as follows:

• We will never use generative AI to write a full blog post, start-to-finish, without any editing for voice, accuracy, or adding a unique, human perspective.
• We will typically use AI more for cut-and-dry, straightforward, tactical posts. Topics like “The 11 Best Ways to Send Large Files” perform particularly well using AI; but more complex, trendy, or thought leadership-type content do not.
• We will use AI to brainstorm topics or research ideas, but we will always do our own follow-up research to ensure the information is accurate, and to limit potential biases.

As Kaitlin Milliken, HubSpot Blog’s Program Manager & Content Editor, shares: “AI is a big part of my research process. Certain product descriptions are vague or don’t offer enough information about what makes the software stand out. In these cases, I’ll ask AI what makes a certain product unique. It will give me a list of features that can then help inform my writing/editing.”

Simply put, human beings read HubSpot blog posts to learn how other human beings are selling, marketing, or servicing their customers. We want to respect that trust by continuing to create content that is meant to educate, engage, and delight.

When we can use AI to speed up the time it takes us to research topics or create outlines, that’s great — that means more time to spend on voice, tone, and perspective.

But we will never use AI to replace what humans have always done best: Storytelling.

2. The HubSpot Blog Team Will Leverage Generative AI to Create Outlines … But Not Full Posts.

As previously mentioned, our Blog team will not be using generative AI to create full blog posts.

That doesn’t mean we won’t leverage the power of AI to greatly cut down the time we spend writing. It simply means we’ll treat AI outputs similar to how we might treat outlines or freelance drafts.

Namely: AI outputs can act as the first draft of an article, but not the final copy.

Consider, for instance, a post that provides 34 definitions of SQL keywords, operators, and statements, which HubSpot Blog Manager, Marketing Clint Fontanella recently wrote for the Website Blog. A post of that length would typically require weeks of research and writing.

With AI, Fontanella told me it took roughly 40% of the time to create it.

As he puts it, “AI is going to remove the manual process of content creation so writers can become marketers again and focus more on the creative process. AI copywriting will eliminate tedious tasks like writing definitions and creating outlines, so writers can spend more time on optimizing the post (likely using AI tools) with things like custom multimedia, interactive modules, high-intent internal linking, and more.”

Click here to set a Google Calendar Reminder for The State of Generative AI & How It Will Revolutionize Marketing [New Data + Expert Insights], coming May 17, 2023.

Particularly for more cut-and-dry topics like lengthy listicles, it’s imperative our writers lean into AI to save their time for more complex pieces, or to up-level the multimedia elements included in their posts.

Additionally, many of our writers use AI to write sections of blog posts.

For instance, Tristen Taylor, HubSpot Blog team’s Associate Marketing Manager, told me, “Before using AI, I often found myself rewriting introductions and conclusion paragraphs in blog posts. Now that I have access to these tools, my time needed for completing blog posts or articles has been cut down tremendously because it can capture the tone, intent, and targeted keywords I need through refined AI prompts.”

She adds, “It also allows me to refocus my work more on the content or information of value that readers are looking for, instead of ruminating over small details at the beginning or end.”

3. The HubSpot Blog Team Will Take Advantage of Generative AI as Our New, Trusty Brainstorming Sidekick.

I’ve been reading a lot about how live shopping is going to become the new “norm” in retail, and I knew there could be an interesting angle to write. But I couldn’t fully flesh one out.

So I turned to ChatSpot, HubSpot’s new AI-powered chatbot, and asked, “Please provide me with seven blog post ideas based on the concept of live shopping becoming the status quo for the retail industry.”

Here’s its response:

Not too shabby, huh? From there, I can workshop by myself or with a colleague to formulate the final topic. But in this case, ChatSpot didn’t just save me time — it also introduced a new perspective and more creative, interesting ideas that I hadn’t previously considered.

In other words, one of the biggest benefits of generative AI is its ability to act as your new, always-available, infinitely-creative colleague.

And this makes all of HubSpot Blog team’s in-person brainstorming sessions much more effective and compelling.

4. The HubSpot Blog Team Will Experiment with AI-Generated Videos for Our Blog Posts.

Video is more important than ever. In fact, our 2023 State of Marketing report found that video is the most popular and effective media format for the fourth year in a row.

But creating videos takes time and resources. And there are some topics, like CSS Grid Layouts, that were previously not worth the effort it took in terms of potential video MSV.

This left some major gaps in our content strategy. While CSS Grid Layouts might not be the snazziest YouTube video (I get it … it’s probably not going to go viral), it is a topic that is complex and potentially confusing — making it an ideal candidate for a quick, easy how-to video for our readers who are interested in learning more about CSS layouts.

Enter: Veed.io, a video editing software with AI tools built-in, such as their AI image generator and AI text reader. 

The Website Blog leveraged Veed to create their own CSS grid video with an AI-generated voice-over in less than an hour.

Plus, as our team leans into AI for brainstorming, outlining, and researching, we will be able to find more time to experiment with projects like this one.

For our team, this is just the beginning. We will continue to test and iterate on our AI-generated video strategy to expand videos across Blogs for greater impact in the months to come.

5. The HubSpot Blog Team Will Use Generative AI for Meta descriptions, Social Summaries, and Email Descriptions.

For some reason, I often hit the greatest writer’s block after I’ve finished a post and I’m asked by a social media manager or email manager to summarize it.

In some ways, perhaps it’s most difficult because I know the topic too well. Everything in my post seems important. How can I possibly pick what is most relevant to include?

Quickly figuring out the right messaging to promote your content is one of the most powerful opportunities with AI. In fact, I worked with ChatSpot to come up with the meta description for this post:

Jamie Juviler, Managing Editor of the Website Blog, also leverages AI for meta descriptions. He suggests feeding your introduction paragraph into an AI chatbot, and then asking it to produce a 100-150 character meta description.

Finding small ways to elevate your promotional copy by leveraging AI is key to harnessing its full potential.

HubSpot’s Blog Team Will Continue to Write Human-to-Human, First

One more thing — we want to lead with transparency for our audiences, so we do promise this: On any post we write that has been AI-supported (or AI-generated, even if it has been human-edited), we will be sure to leave a disclaimer that lets you know that we leveraged AI to complete the post.

It’s also important to note that our team is learning as we go. Similar to the advent of any new, exciting technology, AI comes with plenty of benefits … and plenty of drawbacks.

Learning how to mold AI into the type of tool that fits our existing priorities and quality metrics will be key to retaining the audiences we’ve worked so hard to build. At its core, we know AI can’t replace the humanity behind marketing. So we won’t try to.

“If you’re not using AI, you’re falling behind” is a statement you might have read and heard frequently in the past few months.

It can be a disheartening statement because, as a marketer, you don’t want to be late to the trends, but the amount there is to learn and take in all at once can lead to AI fatigue.

You may feel overwhelmed by the daily AI news cycle — which makes sense. In this post, we’ll discuss six ways to prevent personal AI fatigue.

What is AI fatigue?

AI fatigue can be described as feeling overwhelmed by the current landscape and conversations about AI over the past few months.

The field of artificial intelligence has been around for almost 70 years. We’re currently only using reactive and limited memory AI, and scientists haven’t even begun creating AGI or super AI.

Although not a new concept, AI is currently experiencing what’s been described as a gold rush. And whether you’re looking to leverage AI or launch an AI product, you might not even know where to start.

If that’s you, and you’re feeling a bit of AI fatigue, what can you do about it? Let’s discuss.

Preventing Personal AI Fatigue

1. Understand the basics of AI.

Some AI fatigue might come from not understanding how AI does what it does. Here are some basic definitions of AI and other concepts discussed lately.

Artificial intelligence is computer systems or machines that mimic human capabilities to complete tasks without human input or guidance. AI can interpret and produce speech, solve problems, sort through data, etc. It’s a broad umbrella term.

You might also hear about machine learning, a type of AI where machines analyze large amounts of data points, learn from the data, and develop the ability to make decisions and predictions from that learning. Humans provide the data it learn from, which can be on a specific topic for a single use case or broader applications.

Generative AI is any tool that can answer questions or create images, text, and even video. These tools are powered by machine learning algorithms and use natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG) to understand and respond to human input.

With this baseline understanding, processing and engaging with current conversations might be more manageable. If you want more in-depth learning, check out this educational resource for all you need to know about AI.

2. Be selective in what you consume.

There are so many conversations about AI that it might feel like a full-time job to keep up with them. The important thing to note is that not all discussions apply to your specific needs, so you can be selective in what you consume.

The best content to focus on is facts about how AI works, proven results from using AI, and experiences people or other businesses have already had with adopting AI. Everything should be related to your industry because, for example, as a marketer, you’d be better served learning about generative AI writing tools than how healthcare providers use AI to diagnose patients.

Check out this Marketing Against The Grain episode to learn about more marketing opportunities AI unlocks for business.

Click here to listen to the full episode

3. Learn from others’ experiences with AI.

One of the best things about life is learning from the experiences of others.

If you’re overwhelmed by the possibilities, consider taking a step back to observe. How are similar businesses using AI, reacting to it, or adopting it?

Many businesses are jumping in head first and sharing their results. You can learn from their experience, how it relates to your needs, and how to apply it to your strategy and approach to using AI.

4. Understand its impact on the workforce.

41% of professionals who responded to our State of AI Survey reported they were concerned about AI taking over their jobs in the next few years.

This fear can be a significant factor in AI fatigue, whether it’s left you worried about your employment status or inspired you to start doing everything you can to learn how to use AI in your role.

It’s true that AI will change how we do business, but the general consensus is that AI won’t take our jobs. Instead, it will require some fields and positions to change how jobs are done, which can require people to reskill and learn how to leverage AI in day-to-day processes. Most jobs already expect employees to engage in professional development on the job, so this is nothing new.

Samyutha Reddy, Jasper’s Head of Enterprise Marketing, said that AI will simply focus on elevating marketers – “I think there’s a certain power here that marketers can reclaim, and instead of being the victims in this story of ‘generative AI is coming for marketing,’ I think we can really reposition it as saying, generative AI has landed in the most innovative portion of the enterprise: marketing.”

5. Think about how AI will benefit you, specifically.

Similarly to being selective with what you consume, focus on the benefits AI will bring you, specifically. Focusing on its direct impacts can also build excitement in your research into AI.

For marketers, AI can speed up content creation, help you optimize your email marketing to increase conversion rates and reduce the time it takes to analyze campaign analytics. Generative AI can improve your storytelling and help you with brand marketing initiatives that reach the right audiences.

The most significant impact on your day-to-day is that AI will save you time. The average employee saves almost 2.5 hours a day using AI/automation, and marketers using generative AI save an average of 3+ hours on each piece of content they make.

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6. You have the right to take breaks.

Many of the suggestions on this list can help you stay focused, like understanding how AI works and how it applies to you. But, if the noise seems too loud, you can step away and take a break.

The conversations don’t seem to be slowing down, so you can pick back up when you’re ready. As mentioned above, learning from the experiences of others is always a valuable strategy, so you’ll likely have a lot to learn from.

Over to You

Staying on top of business trends is essential, yet AI is a huge field with many applications that aren’t relevant to everyone’s needs. Narrowing in on how it affects you can help control the information overload.

If you’re looking for a low-stakes way to learn more, HubSpot’s State of AI pillar features insights into how marketing professionals currently use AI and topics like AI ethics, types of AI, and even cool jobs that could be created around AI.

The COVID-19 era was notoriously a rollercoaster for marketers, who had to pivot their strategies constantly as the world changed.

As if one unprecedented event wasn’t enough, marketers are now faced with a looming recession that’s already having major impacts on their industry.

Will the recession shake things up as much as COVID-19 did?

While we can’t truly predict the future, one-third of marketers think a recession will have an even bigger impact on their marketing activities than the pandemic, while another 33% say it will be about the same.

While you should still take the data above with a grain of salt as it is just one of many studies and the economy is always quickly evolving, here are three things you need to know to prepare for whatever the coming months bring:

1. Most Marketer Say the Recession Is Here

While the world debates whether the recession is looming or arrived months ago, 78% of marketers say we’re already living in it.

Marketers are already seeing budget cuts, hiring freezes, and other unpleasant effects. At the same time, their plans and goals for 2023 are constantly being adjusted as the economic situation progresses.

For a deeper dive into the macroeconomic reasons marketers are being hit so hard, check out our blog post on how the recession is already impacting marketers.

2. 67% of marketers expect an economic slowdown for more than six months:

Not only is it already here, but our survey shows that marketers aren’t expecting the recession to end anytime soon. As one marketer put it:

“Between COVID-19 uncertainty, high prices due to inflation, supply chain and venue availability issues, people are hesitant to plan large events for the next 12 months. I expect that will continue at least for another year or until there is some sense of stability in the market.”

3. Some marketing channels are losing effectiveness, requiring more spend.

Being expected to make a huge impact with a small budget is nothing new for marketers. But what happens when your usual marketing channels aren’t as effective as they used to be?

According to a marketer in our survey, “we’re needing to spend more to get similar results from 6 months ago.” Meanwhile, 37% of marketers have already seen budget cuts.

We asked industry leaders for the most effective marketing strategies to cut costs in their marketing budgets. These made the top of the list:

At #1, tapping into earned media is a great (and free) opportunity to expand your reach and cut your budget. Also tied for first is leveraging automation and AI.

Thirdly, finding new or emerging marketing opportunities can also be huge. For example, embracing BeReal, a new social media platform popular among Gen Z, is completely free. Being among the first brands to hop on the trend presents a massive opportunity.

For more insights on how marketing leaders are planning to navigate these times, see our full report here.

What’s Next?

We plan on surveying marketers throughout 2023 to keep tabs on how the recession is impacting them as responsive as possible.

Whether the recession ends up milder than expected or continues to cause challenges, we’ll keep you posted and give you the tips you need to succeed in difficult times.

To learn more about the overarching opportunities, challenges, and trends in marketing today, check out our free State of Marketing Report below.

 

 

 

In the summer of 1968, audiences everywhere were shocked by the sights and visions presented in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick’s cinematic opus featured technologies that seemed, well, extremely far-fetched at the time. Taking center stage was an artificial intelligence known as HAL 9000.

While we’re still quite a bit away from AI singing Daisy, developments in AI have started to impact work everywhere, including marketing. These tools are powerful additions to any marketing team. Below, we’ll discuss the benefits and cover 15 tools you can use today.

Table of Contents

• The Benefits of Using AI in Marketing
• 15 AI Tools for Marketers

The Benefits of Using AI in Marketing

Whenever AI or automation comes up, many fear AI causing mass unemployment. This is nothing new. People had the same fear back in the 1800s during the industrial revolution, and the Luddites were literally going around with sledgehammers breaking machines.

After the huge splash from the release of ChatGPT, there is little doubt that AI is impacting marketing jobs already. Research from the University of Pennsylvania estimates that “19% of workers may see at least 50% of their tasks impacted.”

The key word in that statement, though, is impacted.

Marketers who learn to leverage AI-powered tools will see better results from their campaigns and diversify their skillset.

Today’s AI tools still have a huge amount of growth potential. Still, those already available can significantly reduce the time it takes to complete tasks and reduce the lift for completing complex tasks, all while running 24/7 with no downtime.

15 AI Tools for Marketers

AI in marketing has been sweeping the news, mostly in the content generation space.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT took the world by storm in November 2022 and had millions of users within weeks. Marketing teams were experimenting with the tool’s limits, testing everything from writing blog posts to campaign ideation to composing emails.

While content-related tasks are the current lightning rod around AI, plenty of other use cases stretch across various marketing disciplines. We will talk about 15 tools you can use today to make your team more efficient.

1. HubSpot

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• Price: Free.
• Best for: Creating written content.
• What it does: Hubspot’s content assistant is a suite of free, AI-powered features that help you plan, create, and share remarkable content quickly.

Creating content isn’t easy. And creating content that supports an entire organization can be extremely time-consuming. Our AI content assistant makes content creation simpler. It integrates with all of your HubSpot tools to generate and share quality content.

You can use content assistant tools to write blog posts, landing pages, and more, along with conversation intelligence — all without needing to switch between different tools.

What we love: Content Assistant can help you generate SEO-optimized outlines if you still want to do the writing yourself.

2. Jasper.ai

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• Price: Plans start at $40 per month.
• Best for: Content creation and ideation.
• What it does: Jasper.ai’s platform is capable of just about everything you’d hope a good writing assistant should do, short of going on a coffee run.

Jasper.ai’s easy-to-use interface can help you generate ideas, craft first drafts, and edit final posts. Their available templates cover social, PPC, blogging, and more.

It does take practice to insert prompts that get the result you’re looking for, but Jasper.ai is an excellent tool for conquering the blank page.

Remember: As with so many of the other AI content tools on the market, Jasper is based on GPT-3. Its ability to write naturally will only improve with time.

3. Howler AI

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• Price: $8,000 per month.
• Best for: Targeted campaigns for press releases.
• What it does: Sifts through a database of 600 thousand journalists to find those that fit your industry and niche based on what they’ve written or published about before.

Journalists’ inboxes are inundated with pitches. With Howler.AI, your team can increase the chances that your email won’t end up in the trash. Likewise, a hyper-targeted approach can ensure you align with the journalists’ existing audience.

What we love: Howler AI can help you write and perfect your pitch to help you generate interest.

4. 6Sense Revenue AI for Marketing

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• Price: Free versions are available. Pricing is available upon inquiry.
• Best for: Account targeting and prioritization.
• What it does: Leverages AI to analyze audience data to glean visibility into anonymous buying team research to prioritize accounts and to help focus resources.

When only a small fraction of your total addressable market is buying at any given time, having insight into who is actually looking for a change can turn marketing from guesswork into a predictable pipeline.

Long a contender in the intent data space, 6Sense now has AI sifting through the massive amount of intent data to surface actionable insights. That way, your team is focusing on the highest-value activities at any given time.

What we love: 6Sense can help you match buying signals to accounts across devices and channels.

5. Adverity

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• Price: Plans start at $500 per month.
• Best for: Data analytics
• What it does: Centralizes all marketing data from various sources, including campaigns across all channels, where it can be easily analyzed.

No marketer will ever say that they have too little data. Adverity helps give a single-pane view into your marketing analytics. This can help your team surface trends and insights that empower you to make better, more informed decisions.

Data governance is also built into the platform. This can help you ensure that your information is complete and high-quality. You can also maintain complete control of your data all from one place.

What we love: Adverity has pre-built connectors and no-code templates that allow you to use the platform without coding expertise.

6. Drift

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• Price: Plans start at $2,500 per month.
• Best for: Conversational marketing
• What it does: Turns the choose-your-own-adventure chatbot experience into an interactive support and lead generation tool.

Drift has trained its AI to answer human questions and integrated it into its chatbot experience. This way, if a person has a question that is not featured in the chosen path, users will still get an answer or otherwise be routed directly to a person.

What we love: Drift’s AI features can help give a VIP experience to key accounts or relieve overburdened support teams from answering simple questions that the bot can handle.

7. Zapier

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• Pricing: Free plans are available. Paid plans start at $19 a month.
• Best for: Text parsing.
• What it does: Connect your apps to automated workflows, saving your team time so you can focus on growth.

Zapier is designed to help you scale your business by automating time-intensive tasks. For marketers, that could include sending contacts to email lists and kicking off important workflows.

Zapier can also turn text-based input — whether that’s emails, Slack messages, Tweets, or a form — into data and answer simple questions. Whether routing hand raisers from a “Contact Us” form or lead routing, Zapier can drastically cut down on manual work.

What we love: With automated text analysis, marketing teams can also parse huge amounts of text and acquire valuable insights from customer feedback that people might miss.

8. Brand24

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• Price: Plans start at $69 per month.
• Best for: Social listening and sentiment analysis.
• What it does: Sifts through massive amounts of information generated on public platforms, whether that’s social media or forums. Provides organizations with a dashboard that analyzes everything from mentions, the volume of discussion, and overall brand sentiment.

Customers today expect brands to respond quickly on social media. The trouble is, if an organization is present across every major social media platform, there’s simply too much data to keep track of every comment, mention, and trending topic — and spot the signal through the noise.

Brand24 helps surface the conversations that your community management, evangelists, or social media teams should be paying attention to.

What we love: Brand24 insights can help you identify ways to improve your marketing campaign and even the product itself.

9. MarketMuse

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• Price: Free. Paid plans start at $149 per month.
• Best for: Content strategy and planning.
• What it does: Analyzes your website and uncovers top opportunities in search, helping surface gaps in your content.

Depending on how long your content engine has been running, the volume of content existing on your website could make auditing everything a time suck. MarketMuse can help you focus on what matters: creating better content your audience wants.

What we love: MarketMuse can help you find keywords that match your content. You’ll also see ways to optimize your content for search engine result pages.

10. Semrush

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• Price: Plans start at $119.95 per month.
• Best for: Search Engine Optimization
• What it does: Helps generate content and ensure your writing is optimized for SEO.

Semrush has long been a top contender for managing keyword targeting for SEO and paid campaigns. Now they’ve integrated AI in the form of The SEO Writing Assistant (SWA), making an already powerful platform even more robust.

What we love: SWA is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s like a personal writing assistant who can ensure your writing is targeted toward achieving the best results in search.

11. Crayon

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• Price: Pricing is available upon request.
• Best for: Competitive Intelligence
• What it does: Automatically gathers and organizes data from millions of sources to help you track industry trends.

Similar to Semrush, Crayon has been a leader in their field for years. They’ve recently integrated AI to help sort through millions of data points from sources across the web to help you gain a better competitive advantage.

Crayon’s AI and machine learning integrations help make sense of what information is important about your competitors and what’s just noise. It helps keep track of SEC filings, pricing updates, messaging pivots, and more while summarizing the important information in an easy-to-share format.

What we love: You can take a deep dive into competitors. Crayon assesses your competitors’ digital footprints to provide a view of the competitive landscape.

12. Lavender

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• Price: Pricing starts at $29 per month.
• Best for: Email training.
• What it does: Plugs directly into your email platform of choice and suggests how to improve email content to drive more replies.

If you’re looking to optimize your emails, Lavender can help. Whether you’re writing an internal memo or a pitch for journalists, Lavender can compose the text for you — or just help you optimize your message.

Lavender can also help your sales teams. Account executives and sales development representatives can craft personalized emails to hook prospects.

What we love: Lavender gathers prospect news, data, and insights so you can craft a personalized, timely message to close deals.

13. Braze

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• Price: Pricing is available upon request.
• Best for: Customer intelligence.
• What it does: Integrates with all your data sources (CRM, MAP, etc.) and looks for signals that a customer might be at risk for churn or shows interest in potential upsell opportunities. Suggests potential messaging strategies to use based on that same data.

Many organizations have been laser-focused on customer retention. Braze helps even the smallest teams save thousands of hours sifting through data to understand what their customers need, whether that’s an additional feature or more engagement from their account managers.

Sometimes the signals related to churn are difficult to see. Braze can help your sales team re-engage prospects with marketing content, customer support, and more.

What we love: Braze can also help marketing create personalized offers using data. You can also A/B test your campaigns to see how they impact sales.

14. Axiom.ai

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• Pricing: Plans start at $15 a month.
• Best for: Automation of repetitive tasks.
• What it does: Automates scraping and interacts with websites in simple ways that previously required a person.

Unlike the process flow automation offered by tools like Zapier, Axiom.ai falls into a category known as Robotic Process Automation.

Axiom.ai can scrape data and automate simple tasks. Your team can gather data from Google Trends, automate website actions, and build bots.

What we love: Axiom can scrape websites for data, extract information, or perform other simple user interface actions.

15. Hemingway

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Pricing: $19.99

Best for: Content editing.

What it does: Analyzes your content and suggests where you could make it clearer, more concise, or improve your diction.

As Strunk and White suggest, you should omit needless words when writing. The only question that we sometimes have is, which ones? Hemingway uses AI and machine learning to identify opportunities at a sentence level that can make your writing that much stronger.

What we love: Hemingway gives you a readability score so you can assess your overall performance.

Getting Started

Used properly, ethically, and with the right guidelines in place, AI is no different than any other tool. Marketing teams can and should be using all the tools at their disposal to maximize their impact on revenue generation.

So while the whole HAL 9000 thing may not be on the horizon anytime soon, well…it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still be nice to the robots.